The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) will be conducting written examination in December 2022 at 20 cities across Indiaforadmission to its MBA-IB (MBA in International Business) program 2023-25 at IIFT New Delhi & IIFT Kolkata.
IIFT aspirants may note some of the key features and take away that have emerged from analysis of 5 years exams are as follows:
IIFT keeps on experimenting with number of questions as well as number of sections. While 2008 exam had 6 sections (including 2 sections for different types of RCs), the exam from 2009 onwards has had 4 sections.
However, even in such a scenario, there have been occasions (most notably 2010) when a particular section has had 2 subsections i.e. Verbal Ability had a subsection for RC and one for VA. Similarly, while 2008 had separate DI and LR sections, the latter exams have had a common DI LR section.
Therefore, a key point to remember is that within a subject area e.g. QA, VA or DI LR, it is very risky in IIFT to have a weak sub section. So, for instance, if you are planning to sail through DILR based only on DI, you could be in trouble if the two are separated.
IIFT is one of the rare exams that allot per question differential marks to each section. In 2013, differential marks were even allotted between the two Verbal Ability sub-sections. Also, the marks allotted for a question in a particular section are not constant throughout the years. IIFT has been changing from year to year.
So, it is important NOT to go in the exam with a pre-conceived notion about any one or two sections. For instance, if you go for IIFT thinking that you will focus on LR, GK and Verbal Ability, you could suffer if QA and DI are allotted more marks per question. Take a decision after looking at the marks per question in your exam AND the difficulty level of that section
The IIFT cut-offs are generally on the lower side (around 35). Logically, since there are 4 sections, the average cut-off per section will be in the range of 8-10. What this means for you is that question selection becomes important.
You may not need to attempt all questions from a section to clear IIFT. Identify the questions that seem solvable, attempt them and move on. Note that IIFT has always been a 2 hour exam and the number of questions has always been more than 120.
This means that you have less than a minute to solve a question. As such, don’t even attempt to solve all questions in the paper, or even within a section. Try to have a balanced attempt.
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